Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GIA
“Gia!!!” Laura is screaming my name.
I’m standing on the edge of the Amalfi cliffs, the ones from the photographs in my father’s study.
The sky is a bruised, angry purple, and the waves below are churning like a graveyard of salt and stone.
I can see her—my baby sister, her small hands clawing at the jagged rock, her brown eyes wide with a terror that no nine-year-old should ever know.
"Gia! Help me! Please!”
“Laura!!” I cry as I reach out, my fingers inches from hers, but my feet are rooted in the earth. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. And then, he’s there. My father. He looks at me, then at Laura, and he smiles. It’s the smile of a man who has already decided the price of a soul.
He raises a polished shoe and presses it against Laura’s knuckles.
"No!" I scream, but the sound is swallowed by the wind. "Father, please! Don’t do this!"
"You were disappointing, Gia," he says calmly.
He pushes.
Laura’s fingers slip. She doesn't just fall; she’s ripped away, her scream trailing off as the dark water swallows her whole. I’m staring into the abyss, my heart hollowing out until there’s nothing left but a cold, jagged vacuum.
I wake up with a jolt that nearly sends me off the bed.
My lungs are burning, my throat tight with a silent sob.
The room is dark, save for the thin sliver of moonlight cutting through the curtains, and for a second, I’m still on that cliff.
I’m still reaching for a sister who isn't there. My nightdress is plastered to my skin with cold sweat, and I’m shaking so hard I can hear the bedframe rattle.
She’s gone. He’s going to kill her. I’m sitting in a palace of blood and I’m doing nothing. I’m doing nothing.
"Gia."
The voice is low, a rough vibration in the dark beside me. I freeze, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. Rafael. He’s awake. Of course he is.
I stay rigid, staring at the far wall, my breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches.
Don't look at him. If you look at him, you’ll break. If you look at him, he’ll see the silver wolf charm and the threat and the fact that you’re a traitor.
He doesn't touch me. I can feel the heat of him, a steady presence a few inches away, but he gives me the space. It’s the most frustrating thing about him—this capacity for patience that shouldn't belong to a man called The Butcher, damn it.
"You’re okay," he says, his voice like gravel. "You’re here with me. You’re safe."
Safe. The word tastes like ash. I reach out instinctively, my hand searching for something solid in the dark, and I find his.
He responds instantly, his large, scarred hand closing over mine.
His palm is hot, his grip steadying. I lean into the contact, my forehead dropping to his shoulder as the first sob finally breaks free.
"Tell me what's going on," he murmurs, his other hand coming up to stroke my hair, a slow, rhythmic movement that’s meant to calm me and only makes me want to scream.
"I can't... I just..." I swallow hard, the phantom image of Laura’s hand slipping away still burned into my retinas. I need to get out of my head. I need to drown the noise. "I need to forget. Rafael, please. I need to forget everything."
I look up at him then. His eyes are dark, two pits of shadow in the moonlight, but I can see the way they sharpen. He knows I’m not talking about the nightmare. He knows I’m talking about the world outside this room.
"Do you know what you’re asking for, little Gia?" he asks, his voice dropping into a register that makes my toes curl.
"Yes," I moan, my hand sliding up his arm, feeling the hard, corded muscle. "I know. Just... make me forget. Make me forget my name, my father, this house. Make me only feel you."
I reach up, pulling his head down, my lips seeking his in the dark. It’s a desperate, starving kiss. Right now I’m just a woman on the edge of a breakdown, seeking the only anchor she has left.
"Fuck," he growls against my mouth.
He doesn't hesitate anymore. He flips me onto my back, his weight a welcome pressure as he pins me to the mattress. He starts softly, his mouth trailing down my neck, his tongue swirling over the pulse point that’s currently erratic.
He kisses my collarbones, the valley between my breasts, his hands moving over my curves with a possessive, slow-burning intent.
"You want to forget?" he whispers, his hands gathering the silk of my nightdress and pulling it over my head. "I’ll give you something else to think about."
He moves down my body, his teeth grazing my collarbones, leaving marks that will surely turn purple by morning.
His hands are everywhere—rough, heavy, and sure.
He isn't treating me like glass; he’s treating me like territory.
And god, it’s exactly what I need. I want to be handled.
I want to be used until the image of Laura on that cliff is burned away by the heat of him.
"Look at me," he commands, his voice a dark, gravelly snap.
I open my eyes, my breath coming in short, needy bursts. He’s looming over me, his silhouette massive and terrifying in the moonlight. He dips his head, his mouth marking a path over my stomach, his teeth grazing my hip bone hard enough to make me hiss. Then, he’s between my legs.
I gasp, my fingers tangling in his dark hair as he hooks my knees over his shoulders. He starts with slow, languid strokes of his tongue, tasting me, teasing the aching bud of my clit.
"You’re so wet for a woman who says she doesn't want to be here," he mutters, his voice vibrating against my most sensitive skin. "Tell me, Gia. Are you sure you don’t want to be here?"
"Rafael... please..." I'm losing my mind. The shame and the pleasure are a toxic mix, making my head spin.
"Not yet," he grunts.
He increases the pace, his tongue becoming more insistent, more rhythmic.
He knows exactly how to build the pressure, his thumb joining in to grind against me until I’m arching my back, my fingers digging into his scalp.
I’m writhing under him, my hands gripping the sheets until they threaten to tear.
The first climax hits me like a freight train, an explosion that leaves me sobbing his name into the empty air.
But he doesn't stop. He doesn't give me a second to breathe.
He keeps going, his fingers sliding inside me, stretching me, his tongue never leaving its mark. He builds me back up immediately, a second wave of pleasure crashing over me before the first has even faded. I’m a mess of tangled silk and raw nerves, my body a live wire under his touch.
Finally, he pulls back, his face flushed, his eyes dark with a hunger that’s pure, unadulterated predator. He reaches for his trousers, discarding them in one fluid motion, and then he’s back over me. He’s thick, heavy, and pulsing against my thigh.
"Are you sure, Gia?" he asks, his voice thick with a warning. "Because once I start, I’m not stopping. I'm going to take everything you're offering and more."
"Don't stop," I beg, my legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer.
Do it. Destroy the memory of my father, Laura, Cosimo. Destroy the memory of the blood.
"Don't ever stop, please."
He enters me with a slow, heavy push. I expect the fullness, the heat, the stretch—but I don't expect the sharp, blinding sting of resistance.
I cry out, my body going rigid, my hands flying to his chest to push him back.
The ghost of Cosimo flits through my mind—the contracts, the bruises, the way I prepared myself to be broken.
I’ve kept this one thing for myself for twenty-four years, a final scrap of dignity, and I’m handing it to Rafael Caruso.
It feels good.
Rafael freezes.
He stays perfectly still, his weight braced on his forearms, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he looks down at me. The silence in the room is heavy enough to choke on.
"Gia? What the hell...?" He looks down to where we’re joined, then back to my face, his expression a chaotic swirl of shock and something that looks dangerously like guilt.
"Don't," I whisper, my eyes squeezed shut as a single tear escapes. "Just... give me a second. It'll pass."
"You’re a virgin," he says, and the shock in his voice is like a slap. He sounds almost offended, as if I’ve tricked him into a crime he didn't want to commit. "You’re... fuck, Gia. Why didn't you tell me? You should have told me. I would have been kinder. I wouldn't have—"
"I don't want kind!" I snap, my eyes flying open, my stubbornness flaring up to hide the raw vulnerability of the moment. I can't let him be soft. If he’s soft, I’ll believe he cares, and that’s a lie I can't afford.
"I told you what I wanted. I want you to make me forget.
I want it rough. I want the line to be clear, Rafael.
This is attraction. This is a trade for my sanity.
It isn't... it isn't a goddamn romance."
I see the moment the words land. I see the flicker of genuine concern in his eyes die out.
He was worried he’d hurt me, a man processing the fact that I’d given him something sacred. But my words? I just reduced that gift to a business transaction. I just told the Butcher he was a tool I was using to scrape my brain clean.
His expression shifts. The concern vanishes, replaced by a cold, hard mask that is more terrifying than the one he wears in the basement. His jaw tightens, a muscle feathering at the hinge, and his grip on my wrists becomes like iron.
"Is that what this is?" he asks, his voice like the edge of a razor. "A trade? You’re using me as a distraction from your nightmares?"
"Y-Yes," I say, my voice trembling even as I hold his gaze.
"Fine. If you want a trade, little Gia, let's make it a fair one."
He doesn't wait anymore. He starts to move, and the "kindness" he was offering is buried under a mountain of spite. He’s dominant, his thrusts deep and powerful, his hands pinning my wrists above my head so hard I’ll have marks for a week. He’s the Butcher now, taking what he wants with a clinical, punishing intensity that demands I acknowledge every second of the "trade. "
"You want rough?" he growls, his face inches from mine, his breath hot and angry. "You want to forget who you are? Then look at me, Gia. Look at me while I take every part of the girl you’ve been hiding. If it’s just a trade, then give me my money’s worth."
I look. I can't do anything else. I’m lost in the green of his eyes, in the heat of his body, in the sheer, overwhelming power of his resentment. He’s taking me apart, stroke by stroke, his dirty talk a low, dark accompaniment to the sound of our bodies colliding.
"You’re mine," he mutters, his teeth grazing my earlobe with a sharp nip. "In this bed, you belong to me. Just me. And you’re going to remember this long after the nightmares fade."
The orgasm is violent when it comes, a dark, jagged thing that leaves me shattered.
I cry out his name—not as a plea, but as an admission of defeat.
I clench around him, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
He follows me a second later, a low, guttural sound escaping him as he spills into me, his body shuddering with a force that feels like a silent scream.
He stays there for a moment, his chest heaving against mine, his head buried in the crook of my neck. I can feel his heartbeat—fast, erratic, and heavy with a weight I don't understand.
Then, he pulls back.
The silence that follows is different than before. It’s heavy. It’s freezing.
He gets out of bed without a word, not even looking at me. He pulls his trousers on, his back to me, the silver scars on his skin looking like accusations in the moonlight. I stay under the covers, pulling them up to my chin, the warmth of his body already fading into the cold air of the room.
"That was what you wanted?" he asks, his voice flat and clinical as he finally turns to look at me. His eyes are like stone. "A way to drown the noise?"
"Y-Yes," I whisper, the word feeling like ash in my mouth.
"Good." He picks up his shirt from the chair, his movements stiff. "I’m going to the study. I have work to do. Actual business, Gia. Not whatever this pathetic display was."
"Rafael—"
"Don't." He stops me with a look so cold it feels like a physical barrier. He’s angry—not because I’m a virgin, but because I made him feel like he mattered, and then told him he was just a service.
He feels used, and a man like Rafael Caruso doesn't handle being a pawn well.
"You wanted the line to be clear, little Gia. It’s crystal clear now. "
He walks out of the room, the door closing with a definitive, soul-crushing click.
I lie in the dark, my body aching, my heart a heavy, cold stone in my chest. I’m safe. I’m claimed. And I’ve never been more alone in my entire life.
I think about the burner phone in the drawer.
I am a liar, I think. And the truth is going to kill us both.